and former connecticut senator chris dodd who squared off with barack obama in 2008. richard norton smith of george mason university. and finally, we're especially pleased to be joined by abc's senior foreign affairs correspondent martha raddatz. buzz feed gave you the nickname of badass supermoderator. let's give her a round of applause. [ applause ] >> thank you, thank you, thank you. >> and as you just saw, we have great audience here today. thanks to you for joining thus morning. the quig question today, do presidential debates change elections? do they matter? the answer at first blush seems simple, of course debates matter. the candidates spend weeks, if not month, preparing. the audiences are enormous. 67 million for the first meeting between romney and owe what. afterward, in our twitter-fueled, shortened attention span news cycle, the performances are talked about. . ruing the a lack of preparation that led to the performance with jack kennedy 11 years before. >> running the [ bleep ] sed so hard, we didn't learn from the other -- >> yet, for all the hype, th